


liminal

by scaredybear



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Mentions of homophobia, Pre-Established Relationships, gratuitous future fic, thanksgiving with the marshes is a disaster and no one is happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7565338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaredybear/pseuds/scaredybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The two-and-a-half-hour car ride home has been nothing short of tense and awkward, punctuated only by Kate’s apologies. For what, she couldn’t say. They both knew her mother wasn’t going to welcome them with loving arms, much less wholeheartedly accept her daughter’s ‘newfound lesbianism’. So Kate blaming herself for things she didn’t say only serves to accentuate the guilt that grows in Dana.</p>
            </blockquote>





	liminal

The sky weeps, fast and violent.

Rain beats a steady tattoo against the windshield. The city passes by in greasy smears of neon, light slashing vertical bars on Kate’s form in the darkness. Traffic lights and street lamps create a parade of shadow and colour in the cabin.

Dana’s head pounds from crying too much, skin around her eyes tight and sore. There is nothing to do but watch the way Kate drives with a white-knuckled grip, no doubt a product of the weather. She won’t stop shooting her these little side-long glances, the kind she does when she’s debating whether or not to say something. Still, she opts for silence. Dana rests her head against the cool glass of the passenger side window. All she wants to do is cry. 

A half hour passes before Kate’s voice fills the car.

“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.” She sounds so small and so tired. “If—If I had known they would—”

“It’s fine.” They both know it’s not. She hates the way her face falls after the interjection. Winding her arms around her waist do little to help the way remorse sinks its claws into her. _All my fault_ , she thinks.

With her pinky, she draws a spiral in the condensation forming on the window, wipes it away with the side of her hand just as quick. The two-and-a-half-hour car ride home has been nothing short of tense and awkward, punctuated only by Kate’s apologies. For what, she couldn’t say. They both knew her mother wasn’t going to welcome them with loving arms, much less wholeheartedly accept her daughter’s ‘newfound lesbianism’. So Kate blaming herself for things she didn’t say only serves to accentuate the guilt that grows in Dana.

 _All my fault._ Because if she hadn’t brought Dana along as her plus one, maybe she’d be back home. Happy, spending time with her sisters whom she rarely sees as is. Dana's only robbed her of that chance, if she's being honest with herself; robbed her of the chance to have a 'decent' family.

Silence stretches between them again, and she has neither the heart nor the energy to break it. The quiet drags her mind, unwillingly, back to that afternoon: four hours of holding everything in while she pretended things were okay, that Cheryl and Theresa treating the living room like a county fair, and she that small plastic duck you shot at to win a prize, didn’t bother her at all. Richard withered away under the intensity of his wife and his sister like an orchid in summer, offering very little in the way of rebuttal or defense. Kate held her hand in a show of solidarity and defiance and refused to let go. Dana just wanted to sob. (The more Cheryl and Theresa spoke, the more some part of her was beginning to believe it.)

“I didn’t know she’d be there.” Another quick look in Dana’s direction. Aunt Theresa was a pink pantsuit surprise neither of them wanted or accounted for. Kate pulls up at a red light, stuck behind a navy buick with one too many bumper stickers. ANIMALS ARE FRIENDS, NOT FOOD, one of them yells. Dana does her best to ignore the way the cow on the sticker stares up at her balefully. 

She shrugs, despite the fact Kate can’t see it. Silence stretches between them, vaguely uncomfortable. It’s easier to spectate the windshield wipers chasing themselves than it is to talk.  
Kate’s fingers flex on the wheel, tap a worried beat for want of anything else to do. Minutes pass until she shatters the stillness.

“You don’t believe them, do you?”

“No, of course I don’t.” A lie. She does. Somewhere between Theresa informing her she was ‘leading Kate down a thorny road to hell’ and Cheryl’s non-stop commentary about her outfit. An outfit she picked specifically for Thanksgiving dinner with the Marshes. Now she just felt dirty and cheap in her dress—too repulsive for someone like Kate.

“I just—“ Words fail Kate, and she scowls at something on the road. “I can’t get over how they treated you.” 

“It’s not your fault.” Dana sits up now, turning her head so she can look at her silhouette. “You weren’t the one saying those things.”

“That’s not the point!” She sighs, growing agitated. “They’re grown women, they should know better than to behave like that.” (And yet Dana is almost thirty and has been sobbing like a child for the better half of that evening. Funny, that.) The Pontiac gives a lurch as Kate changes gears, holding the stick shift with the same tense grip she had on the steering wheel. Kate has been on edge ever since they left. 

Dana isn’t sure what to say to that, so she nods along, staring out at the busy road. She knows their God isn’t Kate’s God, could never be. For instance, Kate’s God isn’t half as exclusionary as Cheryl’s—no, her God is infinitely more loving and accepting, forgiving, too. She would know, she’s attended Sunday services with her the odd time or two.

“Dana?” Kate reaches over as if to grab her hand, then thinks better of it. It drops back down to the stick shift. 

“Yeah?” Her gaze travels from Kate’s slim shadow in the dark, to the ghostly outline of her hand on the stick shift. 

“Do you want to get something to eat?” 

“We _are_ missing out on dinner.” She tries to lighten the mood, weary of being the wet blanket.

Just briefly, she spots the corner of Kate’s mouth tick upward in a smile before it falls back into place. Kate doesn’t ask her where, perhaps operating under the assumption she wouldn’t care. Ten minutes later, she pulls into the empty parking lot of a Burger King that sits, alone, at the end of an intersection.

(She’s reminded of the bumper sticker on the back of the Buick, the sad eyes of the cow staring up at her. Shaking the image from her mind proves difficult.)

“Coming?” Kate’s soft voice brings her back to the present. She hums by way of response and climbs out of their shitty Pontiac. The eatery is, for lack of a better word, grim. Half of its sign is dead, and like the parking lot, it seems virtually empty. Bits and pieces of it’s edifice have either fallen, or rotted away. 

They hurry inside to escape the rain.

Inside isn’t anymore welcoming. The interior holds on to the 80s with an iron fist, all tackey pastels and cheap plastic seats attached to the table. There’s not much in the way of decor, only a dying neon OPEN sign above the door they entered in. The stench of stale bread hangs in the air, a curious smell for a fast food restaurant. Above them, a light flickers with annoying regularity, buzzing like an incessant fly. 

A lone cashier watches them with mild interest. Or, Dana assumes they’re watching them; she can’t tell for all of the lank, greasy hair hanging in their face. They chew a wad of gum obnoxiously, blowing a bubble and jabbing it with a thick tongue. She flinches when it pops despite herself. A quick peek beyond the blond cashier tells her they are the only one working that evening.

In the far left, a burly man calls a corner booth home, newspaper and garbage fanned out in front of him. His body wavers like a mirage, like he isn’t really there at all. Looking at him unsettles Dana.

The two women exchanged uneasy looks. Kate inches closer to her.

“If you’d like, you can go sit down and I’ll order?” She offers, not unkindly.

“I’ll grab a booth seat.”

She leaves Kate to deal with the cashier-slash-fry cook (she is assuming), grabbing straws and napkins on her way to a booth by the window, far away from the burly man. (He hasn’t moved since they got there.) By either misfortune, or happenstance, the rain begins to let up now that she and Kate are inside what has to be the world’s most off-putting Burger King.

Down the street, a woman walks her dog, the both of them bobbing down the pavement in matching yellow raincoats. She wants to do that--get a dog with Kate, get domestic, settle down. Start a life. Like it’s a possibility, to do just that, and in spite of what Kate’s mom or aunt had to say about it. Suddenly, her vision starts to blur, and she presses her palms onto her eyes to stop the tears.

And it’s so stupid, so goddamn silly, to be crying over a woman and her ugly little dog. Only this time she weeps with gratitude, for Kate, for her blind luck at having someone like her in her life. For having someone like her to _share_ her life with.

Kate returns with a tray of food, freezing on the spot when she notices the way Dana curls in on herself. She sets the tray down before slipping into the seat beside her.

“Dana…” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “We can leave if you’d be comfortable elsewhere.” She bundles Dana’s hands in her own. They are warm, and gentle, thumb running over her knuckles. She holds them like she is made of glass, and she’ll shatter at a moment's notice.

“No,” she chokes the word out, shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

Kate stares at her with open-face incredulity, not buying a word of it.

“Please, let’s just eat before it gets cold.”

“All right,” The word is drawn out, and her eyes never leave her face. She lets go of her hands at least, though her expression of concern doesn’t waver. 

“It’s fine, really,” she adds hastily. “I hope you can work things out with your family.” 

“Nice segue.” Kate offers her a wan smile. 

“Today wasn’t your fault.” Dana soldiers on, knowing today was as hard on Kate as it was her.

“I know.” Her smile dips, and she glances away, down at the chipping linoleum flooring. The awful colour scheme of off-white and chocolate brown clash with the neon pink seating. “The way they treated you is still unacceptable. But—” She draws a breath, the exhale making her bangs flutter. “We have each other.”

“We have each other.” Dana repeats, grin spreading across her face. 

And, she supposes, that is more than enough.


End file.
